Reviews are a vital part of a customers booking journey. In results from a Phocuswright studyprepared for TripAdvisor, 53% of participants revealed that they would not commit to booking until they had read customer reviews, and 80% said that they would read between 6-12 reviews each time.

In February 2018, TripAdvisor changed the algorithm for their popularity ranking. This has been met with mixed reviews from the tourism industry, as the ranking now takes into account the quality, quantity and recency of reviews on a business page. So, not only do you need excellent quality customer reviews, but you also require more reviews that are frequently posted throughout the year.

At WTM London 2017, we caught up with Kristian Jørgensen, Director of Tourism for Fjord Norway, the western region of Norway. Kristian participated in our panel discussion, Learn how tours & activities are the core of guest experience, and shared some great insights.

Here's our pick of some of the best quotes from the panel, covering Fjord Norway's growth as a region, their decision to go with TrekkSoft as their region's standardised booking system, and his approach to sustainably growing the region's tourism sector.

As an established tour and activity operator with a large presence online, direct bookings via your website can be crucial to your business. If you're spending time and energy driving traffic to your website, you also need to make sure your website is prepped and primed for bookings.

Here are some ways to optimise your site: You can improve your site's layout to help visitors quickly find what they need. You can improve your product pages and product descriptions to give site visitors a taste of the experiences you offer. You can add a few lines of code to your website to display great reviews from TripAdvisor or Facebook. You can even install an online booking system that displays real-time availabilities so that customers can book and pay you on the spot.

In the last few months, we've been hearing reports from tour and activity suppliers that TripAdvisor has quietly removed contact details from their company's listing and replaced it with a "Book now" button that leads to their Viator listing page. This step encourages customers to book from Viator, now know as TripAdvisor Experiences, rather than directly with suppliers. This change can cost suppliers a 20% to 30% in commission, a rather steep price to pay for a process suppliers have no control over.

In my own inbox, I have also received messages from TrekkSoft customers who have had their rankings changed over night for no clear reasons. When rankings fall from #1 to #5, it can dramatically affect a business' bottom line, especially for companies who rely heavily on their TripAdvisor reviews to bring in new bookings.

Clearly, TripAdvisor is tripping up its suppliers with no warnings or explanations and with no clear future direction, this uncertainty can be daunting.

With so many ways to promote your tours, it's worth putting some thought into your distribution channels. How are you getting your tours in front of your customers? What range of channels are you using online and offline, what free advertising options are there?

Online Travel Agents (OTAs) such as Viator & Expedia are key distribution channels, but should only be part of a balanced distribution plan to ensure your tour and activity business's sustainable future.

Last month, we hosted a webinar all about SEO in 2018. The webinar was delivered by Marcelo, our in-house SEO expert who deals with spreadsheets and Google Analytics all day. He also has extensive experience in the area, having previously worked with brands like HSBC and Volvo.

It was our largest webinar to date, with over 600 signups. It was a great session and I thought it would be great to share some insights from the session.

Over the last several years, tours, activities, and attractions have been the travel industry’s fastest growing sector. Online sales continue to increase at a rapid pace according to Phocuswright’s definitive study, and as such, there is a visible shift in the marketplace. Big players TripAdvisor acquired Viator and more recently Bókun, Airbnb launched ‘experiences’ and Expedia created ‘Things to do’, plus startups have raised more than $250 million in the last 15 months.

In 2017, guides and operators added 30,000 new experiences on TripAdvisor alone, increasing the number of available tours and attractions by 50%. CEO, Stephen Kaufer, commented at the 2016 Skift Global Forumthat they are “looking forward to profitability in the non-hotel segment. And it would be fair to point to attractions as a very big and very interesting growth driver in that non-hotels category.”

This is a guest post by Musement, one of our distribution partners. Join our upcoming workshop with them to learn more about diversifying your sales channels to make sure you're reaching the right customers to get more bookings.

Reaching a new audience is no easy feat, especially when there are language barriers and cultural differences that good ol’ Google Translate cannot help with. This is where working with an online travel agent can give your company the edge it needs to successfully break into a new market… especially when they have a strong presence in the market you’re interested in.

Musement is a good example of this. We’re a travel company with the goal of becoming the ultimate travel companion, allowing travellers to book tickets for activities, iconic attractions and events worldwide.

This is a guest post written by Kyle McCarthy, editor for My Family Travels. You can find more of her work here.

We know every travel destination wants publicity, and every tour operator and supplier wants their services recommended. Like most media outlets who cover travel, I’ve grown up with some rules about how FAM trips work. The trouble is, those rules keep changing, and travel hosts are often not aware of it.

You can avoid misunderstandings by building and maintaining a relationship with local media. Attend conferences, trade shows, and events to meet people. Send out email press releases to vendors, partners, newswires, and websites that cover your destination, and of course, don’t forget to share news on social media. Most importantly, follow up on any requests for information. This way, you’ll have some media ‘friends’ to invite on your next FAM trip.

If you’re inviting media you don’t know, here are some strategies for making sure a trip you host is well covered in the media.

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